


Lay My Curses All to Rest

by cyan_skulls



Series: Lay My Curses All to Rest [1]
Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood Drinking, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Imprisonment, Multi, Psychological Trauma, also i wasnt gonna put any ships in this but im a slut for trephacard, also s/o to my wonderful beta, and also for forge husbands, but here it is i guess, but theyre both VERY minor so dw, dw i save hector because he deserved better, i gave alucard a little sister and then hurt her a lot, i love you nate, idk who would read this, this is just me putting my oc through trauma, this is purely self-indulgent so, this is very oc centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:40:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27596984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyan_skulls/pseuds/cyan_skulls
Summary: The bottom had dropped out of the world. In just one day, Elisbeta Marie Tepeş’s once idyllic life had become a waking nightmare. Little did she know that this was only the beginning. How could she know this one event would drop her off a cliff all the way down into hell until it was too late to stop the fall?(Aka very self indulgent angst fic with my oc.)
Relationships: Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/Trevor Belmont/Sypha Belnades, Hector/Isaac Laforeze, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Lay My Curses All to Rest [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017520
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	1. Drop Off a Cliff.

**Author's Note:**

> This is very self-indulgent, please bear with me. Don't worry, it gets worse >:)  
> I just gave Alucard a little sister and decided to hurt her, so anyway here's some angst.  
> I will try to update on a schedule? But I have ADHD brain, so who knows.

The bottom had dropped out of the world. In just one day, Elisbeta Marie Tepeş’s once idyllic life had become a waking nightmare. Little did she know that this was only the beginning. How could she know this one event would drop her off a cliff all the way down into hell until it was too late to stop the fall?

She had been reviewing some older star charts in the astrarium, her dark curly hair hanging in her face. Her red eyes scanned the charts as she considered remaking them, when her older brother blurred into the room. She had almost never seen Adrian such a mess. His long blonde hair was wild and tangled, his cheeks stained with tears.

“Elisbeta, we have to go.” He almost  _ never  _ called her by her full name. He was out of breath, too, had he run all the way up here?

“Go? Go where?” She asked him even though she was already getting up, she wasn’t going to argue when he looked so upset. He started running down the stairs again, and Elisa had to run to catch up.

“To the capital, Elisbeta, the church-”

“What about the church? Adrian, what’s going on?” She stopped him on the landing and looked at him, pleading for answers and receiving none.

He started crying again, “They took- the church- they took mother to the capital- for witchcraft they said, Eli  _ please _ -” she stopped listening. Her stomach dropped.  _ Witchcraft?  _ It’s true, they  _ had _ been sniffing around, suspicious of her activities, but-

Oh, God. If she’s already in the capital-

She started running again. She and Adrian blurred down to the stables, got on their horses, and rode them as hard as they could towards Gresit.

They didn’t talk, they didn’t stop, they just rode through the woods as fast as they could, until they reached the square. What they saw there brought Elisbeta to her knees. She heard Adrian vomiting behind her. She felt bile rising in her own throat. They were far, far too late. Mama was already burning. In fact she had almost finished. Her lovely blonde hair had already burned away, and whatever she was wearing had burned as well. Her pale skin had turned red and charred black in increments. Her flesh was falling off of her bones in chunks, melting and popping as they met the flames below. Her heart lay charred and shrunken in the cage of her ribs, all the blood evaporated away. If she didn’t know any better, Elisbeta would not have believed that was her mother. The air was choked with smoke and the scent of burning hair. She couldn’t breathe.

She hadn’t realized she was crying until Adrian pulled her closer and held her, almost in his lap, like she was a child again and had crawled into her big brother’s bed after a nightmare. This was a nightmare, one they both shared. They sat together, unnoticed at the edge of the crowd, as the priest spouted some bullshit about how they had “triumphed over the devil” and she promptly stopped listening. She didn’t want to hear him lie to them. 

Why, why,  _ why, why- _ Mama never did anything but help people. All she ever wanted to do was help these people, she  _ loved  _ them, how could they do this to her? They didn’t understand, she was too ahead of her time, they couldn’t open their minds to her medical practice. It wasn’t her fault,  _ it wasn’t her fault, she didn’t do anything wrong, it’s not fair,  _ **_it’s not fair-_ **

Before her thoughts could consume her completely, a vortex of flame rises from the pire, Elisbeta looks up.  _ It’s Papa.  _ His face appeared in the smoke, Elisa heard her brother gasp behind her, as they witnessed their father vow to destroy the world.

They lie frozen at the edge of the square, unmoving, unpeaking, both unsure how to proceed.  _ He can’t be serious. _ But why would he lie about this? He seemed entirely serious, and he wasn’t prone to lying. An even darker shadow fell over Elisbeta’s heart. She and her brother spoke mere seconds apart.

“We need to go back home.”

The ride back to the castle was as solemn as the ride to Gresit. As she pushed her horse to greater speed beneath her, Elisbeta Marie Tepeş tried to think of what she could do to dissuade her father. It seemed hopeless, though. What could she say? She supposed she should approach the subject when the wound was even a little less raw. She had but a year to try to steer her father off this path.

_But she was so much younger than him._ She was only 15, even if she did know better, why would he listen to his teenage daughter? He’s literal millenia old. _She’s a child._ But she had to _try,_ didn’t she?

She looked over at her older brother. Adrian was  _ clearly  _ plotting something, but she couldn’t tell what.

She supposed the only thing to do was to wait.


	2. All the Stars Have Fallen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elisbeta and Adrian return home after the burning to find their home even worse than the Church courtyard.

As soon as they arrived at the castle, they ran straight for the door. The horses were well trained enough to stay put, or perhaps to lead themselves back to the stables. They ran together to the viewing deck, where their father would’ve been in order to send the message in the first place.

When they reached the door, Adrian put an arm out in front of his sister.

“Adrian?”

“Elisbeta, I want you to wait out here for me.”

“What? Adrian, no, we should go together-”

“Eli, I’m not sure what he’s going to do. I wouldn’t be able to bear it if you got hurt-”

“He wouldn’t  _ hurt  _ us!”

“We can’t know that! Please, Elisa, I can’t lose you too. Please, stay here.”

“ _ Okay,  _ okay. I’ll stay here. I’ll- I’ll stay.”

Adrian stood up straight and tilted his chin up, like he was trying to look taller than he was. Elisbeta hadn’t stopped crying, but Adrian had put himself back together entirely before reaching the viewing deck. In order to face their father, it seemed Adrian needed confidence and strength. Elisbeta only hoped that would be enough; their father was a frightening man when he wanted to be. Adrian breezed past her onto the viewing deck, and Elisa sat down on the cold stone floor and waited. Mother always said she was bad at waiting. Elisbeta remembers waiting impatiently for one thing or another, and many times being playfully chastised for the way she fidgeted when she waited. She bounced her legs and played with her jewelry or hair. Eventually, Papa made her a little wooden box with a number of tiny buttons and switches for her to press, something to keep her hands busy when she had to sit still for a long time. 

She left her cube in her room, but she didn’t think it would help much now anyway. If she was bad at waiting before, it was ten times worse now. She wasn’t impatient, no, her feelings overwhelmed her. Pain, and grief, and anger- and dread. She had the sick feeling in her stomach that this would end poorly. She was sure they should wait for a while, separate and let themselves grieve a little-

“There  _ are no innocents!  _ Not anymore!”

She gasped. She had  _ never  _ heard Papa scream like that before. He never screamed at his children  _ or _ his wife, even when he was very cross with them. The sound of it broke her from her shock. She stood up, ceasing to listen, and started to run into the viewing deck. She turned the corner and dashed up the stairs, away from the balcony and-

She fell to her knees, her mouth dropped open. Her eyes welled with tears and yet nothing would shake the terrible image in her head. She knew instantly that she would never forget this moment, no matter how much she may want to. 

It took a moment to realize that she was screaming, but she must have been. Dracula stopped short in his strike at Adrian’s chest, his claws already dug in deep, and turned towards her, mouth falling from its fearsome snarl into shock and despair. 

Elisbeta knew in that instant that this man was no longer her father. Her father was gentle, when he laid hands on them it was carefully, to comfort, to guide. He had never once hurt either of them. Not only was this strike meant to harm Adrian, it was meant to kill. One of the only ways to hurt a dhampir was to strike at the heart, to wound it or pull it out. A strike that poised, that deep-

Elisbeta had no doubt her father was capable of reaching into a man’s chest and pulling out his heart. She also had no doubt that that was precisely what he meant to do. Her big brother,  _ his son. _ There was no hope for Papa. Their father was gone, and in his place stood Dracula. His loss cut her as sharply as her Mother’s.

She was pulled from her thoughts and her screams as Dracula kneeled on the ground and reached for her.

“Starlight-”

She stood and backed away. How dare he- he had no right to call her that. Not now, after what he had done. Not as he kneeled in his son’s cooling blood. Blood he had drawn, without thought, without hesitation.

“Get away from him.” She didn’t want to talk to him, she didn’t even want to see him-

“Starli-”

“Get  _ away from him! _ ”

He stood, his face still grief-stricken, and blurred away. Elisbeta was also quite well-mannered as a child. She never shouted like that at anyone. There was no time to reflect on that now, though. She blurred up the remaining steps and to her brother’s side, kneeled next to him and felt desperately for a pulse.  _ He was still warm- _

She felt around where his pulse point should be and found it, his heart still beating, however faintly. Alive. He’s alive,  _ he’s alive- _

He was still bleeding far too much. He didn’t have much time. She kicked herself. Mama often offered to teach her medicine and healing when she was younger, but Elisbeta had, from a young age, fallen in love with the stars and planets, all the wonders of the night sky. She never had much interest in medicine. Adrian did, but a great deal of good that would do him  _ now.  _

She remembered something Papa had told her long ago, almost unconsciously.

He had shown her a series of tunnels under the castle grounds, a complex maze of paths which he said led all over Wallachia. He told her if she or her brother were ever grievously injured, if they were about to die, to follow the tunnels to a tomb under Gresit. In it, he said, lay a coffin they could rest in to regain their strength, if the worst were to occur.

Elisbeta certainly qualified this as the worst, and she didn’t have many options left, at the moment. She heaved her brother up and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She didn’t think she could support his whole weight in her arms, even with her vampire strength, most of that had gone to Adrian anyway, but she could carry him on her back.

Luckily, what Elisbeta lacked in pure, physical strength, she made up for in magical power. She could feasibly blur most of the way to Gresit without much issue, and she figured she wouldn’t need her magical power after she got there anyway.

And so she did. She moved as quickly as possible through the tunnels, stopping every so often, to check the directions inscribed on the walls to see where to go next. It wasn’t easy work. Sometimes it was all she could do to keep moving at all. Adrian still hadn’t come to in all that time. Before she left, she removed his torn shirt and folded it over his chest, both to stop the bleeding somewhat and to try and cushion the wound as she moved quickly with his chest to her back.

When she reached the tomb, she set him gently on the steps leading to the coffin. She tossed the lid open and found it empty and devoid of dust. Good. She lifted her brother one last time and lay him down in the coffin, hoping his rest wouldn't be eternal. She sat on the steps and rested a while. She had tired herself out moving so quickly. She supposed she should stay here and watch over him anyway. She knew there was a guard of some kind outside the room, to protect against intruders coming from the city, but she didn’t want to leave him. Could she just try to live here? She laid back on the stairs and rested her eyes, and decided she could reflect on that in a moment. So much had happened in so few hours, and she had moved so quickly to get here, she just wanted to rest for a while.

When she awoke, she was not on the cold stone staircase she had fallen asleep on. She woke in a dark, unfamiliar room. It was too dark to make out the details of this room, but she quickly realized she was not alone in this room.

She was lying cradled in the arms of the monster who nearly stole her brother from her. As he rocked her gently, he muttered under his breath. It didn’t seem like he was talking to her, although he was addressing her.

“...you’re all I have left, my daughter, my starlight. I cannot lose you too. I will keep you, starlight, I will keep you safe here. You can’t leave me, not like Adrian, not like Lisa…”

She stiffened, and froze. What was he planning with her? Clearly he knew where she had taken Adrian or he wouldn’t have found her. Oh God, had he followed them to finish his work? She had to find Adrian, or was he already dead? She began to struggle in his arms, trying to break free, to go find Adrian, where was he now?

“Do not fret so much, my heart. I have left your brother to his rest.”

“Let me go, let me go, please, Papa,  _ please- _ ”

As she struggled and fought, he laid her down on the bed and went to the door. As he stepped out he turned back to her.

“You will not be going anywhere, little bat. You will stay here, in this room, as long as I shall live.”

He stepped out the door and shut it with a click. As Elisbeta began to scream one final time, she heard a key turn in the lock, sealing her fate. She was to stay, locked in this room as a prisoner of her father, of Dracula, for the rest of her life.

She knew, now, that this day was just the beginning of the true nightmare. If today was a portent, she dreaded what was to come. She curled in the bed, and wailed for her mother, like a lost child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! We're coming up on finals at school, so I hope to update regularly, but it's sometimes hard to write a fic when you just wrote a 10 page essay in three hours. But here's some more sad shit!


	3. Wishful Thinking

For the first few days, she didn’t have the energy to do anything but cry and sleep. Her fast trip to Gresit, combined with all the stresses of the day before that, had worn her out more than she realised. She supposed, in her more lucid moments, the crying wasn’t helping her lethargy much either.

Upon further inspection of her room, Elisbeta discovered in the main room a wardrobe filled only with dresses (in fact the only trousers she had were the ones she had been wearing that day, and she didn’t want to wear any of those clothes ever again), a small writing desk, a large mirror, a vanity with all her usual cosmetics, a bookshelf filled with her favorite books and some others she did not recognize, and, almost mockingly, many of her star charts framed and hung on the walls. 

There was also an en suite bathroom, including a bath, a toilet, and a cabinet filled with the sorts of toiletries she usually enjoyed. This bathroom had running water, like all the rest of those in the castle.

This whole room was clearly meant to keep Elisbeta in particular. All the clothes in the wardrobe came from her own closet in her old room, all the charts on the walls were hers, the books on the shelf were either books she had always liked or ones that would have interested her. All the toiletries and cosmetics were hers. Everything was hers. Dracula had put the whole room together for her. This was his plan the whole time. She wanted to die. It seemed like the only way out at this point.

For the next week or so (and God help her, but she had already begun to lose track of the days,) she spent her every waking moment pounding on the door of her prison and screaming to be let out. That didn’t work, in fact it never even warranted a response, so she stopped trying. Instead, she would beg to be let out every time her father entered her room to bring her blood, or a notebook and quills and ink so she could write, just to do something.

That was another thing. Elisbeta didn’t know how long he intended to deprive her of real food. She wasn’t sure it was _healthy_ for her to only drink blood and nothing else. Perhaps he had forgotten she wasn’t a fully-fledged vampire...

Speaking in person had more of an affect on him, but not the way she had wanted it to. He didn’t break down, but it seemed to upset him greatly. His eyebrows knit together and his permanent scowl deepened even further every time she brought it up. He hadn’t spoken a word to her since that night, but that didn’t stop her from making sure he knew she would not take her imprisonment quietly.

Initially, she had tried to reason with him. Upon reflection, she realized that he _couldn’t_ be reasoned with. She was lucky, in fact, he had not yet _physically attacked her._ This was delicate. She was no longer as sickly as she had been when she was very young, but she was not as strong as her brother, and he _barely_ survived Dracula’s strike at his heart. _And there’s nobody here to drag me to my coffin._

So she had to take matters into her own hands.

The large window above her bed did not open, but it was not barred. The glass was quite thick, but if she was physically weaker than Adrian, she was much more skilled at magic. She couldn’t _break_ the window, but she could cut out a hole for herself to crawl through.

It was just a little while after Dracula had brought her her blood when Elisa decided to make her move. She drank, because she _had to,_ she needed all the strength she could get, and having not eaten for _a week? Two weeks?_ Had left her incredibly weak. He was far away enough now that he may not hear clearly what was going on, if she was very careful.

She couldn’t very well afford not to be.

She gently placed her claws on the glass and carefully drew a circle, large enough to let her through. She tipped it out and placed it, gently, on the bed. She hopped lightly out and turned into a bat, to glide silently through the night to her freedom. If she could just reach the woods, she could assume her cat form and hide until Dracula stopped searching for her. Wishful thinking.

Her only clue that Dracula had caught on was the displacement of the air behind her, moments before he blurred up and snatched her out of the air. She flailed and resumed her usual form to try and wriggle away from him, clawing and hissing at his form behind her. He wrapped his hands around her waist and flew her down to the castle doors.

She had not stopped struggling, less out of a hope to escape and more due to pure, visceral fear. Dracula sank his fangs into the back of her neck, but not to feed. He allowed the venom from his fangs to sink into her veins, only to placate her. Try as she might, Elisbeta could not resist the effects of Dracula’s powerful venom; an advantage of his age. As the venom began to take effect, Dracula adjusted his grip to hold Elisbeta in front of him, one arm under her knees, and the other under her back. Before very long, her thoughts grew fuzzy and her eyelids drooped. She could only struggle to stay awake, which proved to be an impossible task.

She wasn’t _quite_ asleep, but she certainly wasn’t alert. She didn’t bother to keep her eyes open, but she heard voices, which did shock her awake a little. _I hadn’t known there were people here…_ She didn’t recognize any of these voices, even the loudest one, an angry sounding man somewhere behind them.

Dracula muttered something to two blurry figures at his side. She couldn’t hear what he said, she really barely heard him at all. She just felt the rumbling in his chest, a feeling which may have comforted her before…

She was set down in a different room, which she could not see very well. It seemed like a study of some kind, she couldn’t tell. Dracula arranged her carefully, laying her on something soft and flat. Her head was elevated at a slightly uncomfortable angle, but she hardly noticed. Her eyes slipped fully shut as she heard her father discussing something with whoever had followed them to this room. Elisbeta finally decided to just sleep. There could be time to try another escape later, it was clear this one had soundly failed. For now, she could just rest.

* * *

He should have expected this. Since her birth, Elisbeta had been intent upon driving him mad with worry. Her incredible magical talent and quick wit had made her particularly well-equipped for terrifying her parents.

Dracula counted himself lucky he was so quick and sharp of hearing, or she may have reached the woods before he could catch her. He absolutely could not let that happen. If she escaped…

_I would have nothing left, nothing but this castle and this miserable, shriveled heart._

In any case, he should try to avoid any more close calls. Perhaps if he allowed her to wander the castle, she would not be so restless.

But he would need her guarded, as he certainly wouldn’t be able to catch her again if she wasn’t leaping from the tower. And yet, he could not entrust his daughter to just any guard. In fact, he was leery of allowing any of his generals near her. None of them had made much of a secret of their dislike for half-breeds. He didn’t doubt their allegiance, but he did doubt that it would extend to her.

There were really only two people he could entrust her to. He trusted Issac and Hector more than anyone else in the castle, by a considerable margin. They were quite busy already, but he could not allow anyone else to look after his daughter, and he could not afford to be on his toes all the time, waiting for her next escape attempt. And he had no doubt she would try again. She was always a tenacious little thing. He wondered if he could break her of that habit…

He ignored the fuss he stirred when he stepped into the hall. They would doubtless be seeing more of Elisbeta around the castle now, and it would be best if they saw how much he cared for her now, to avoid any… _incidents._

He acsended the stairs, ignoring Godbrand’s idiotic hollering, and leaned down to notify the two Forgemasters to meet him in his study. _I have a very important task for the two of you…_

When they stepped into the room, he laid Elisbeta gently on a chaise lounge. He then turned to his two Forgemasters and gave them their newest duty in the castle.

“I need for both of you to watch over my daughter, Elisbeta, while she is in the castle. If I merely keep her locked in her tower, as I intended, she would certainly find some way to escape. So I ask that you escort her in the castle to watch over her, and keep her from growing restless. I leave it to you to decide for how long and how often you have her in the castle. You may even have her in the forge with you as you work, if you need the time, so long as she is kept safe there. Be certain she is enriched, and kept as happy as you can manage. She likes to play piano, and to read in the library, and she particularly enjoys charting stars in the Astrarium. I will carry her to her room now, but beginning tomorrow I leave her entirely in your hands, except for her meals, which are brought to her by common guards.”

Knowing better than to question him on this matter, the Forgemasters simply bowed and agreed. Satisfied, Dracula lifted his daughter again and swept out of the room and up towards the tower. _Hopefully she is satiated into relative complacency._ Wishful thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took so long!! I have very bad ADHD brain. Happy new year! Have more angst. Here's a clue: the hurt is the whole fic and the comfort comes in the final chapters.


	4. Cycle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elisbeta was certain she was going insane.

Elisbeta was certain she was going insane. Every day she woke up, drank her small vial of blood, and Issac or Hector would come fetch her and drag her off to the library, or the music room, or the astrarium, or the forge. Then they would just sit and stare at her, or do their work and ignore her entirely. Initially, she would sit across from them and just  _ stare back _ . She refused to just do whatever they told her to, or likely, what Dracula told them to tell her to do.

They always just stared right back, Hector’s gaze somewhat indignant, Issac’s cool and composed. She hated this, she hated  _ them.  _ She hated feeling like a porcelain doll, placed on a high shelf and only being taken down to be dusted off occasionally. She now had two guards outside her door in the tower at all times. Even alone, she was monitered. 

She refused to do anything for two weeks. She would sit and stare back at Issac or Hector every day. Or stare at the ceiling in the forge, or her room. She didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing her bend.

In lieu of actually doing what she was meant to, Elisbeta began to watch the people now populating the castle. She was used to people watching in villages she visited with Adrian, they would float up to a high place and point people out. He made up the most ridiculous lives or quirks for even the most plain-looking people. He once told her that even if they  _ seemed  _ boring, everyone in the world had a life and loves and passions of their own.  _ “You should never discount them, Eli. Every human on Earth is a whole person, the same as you or me.” _

She pushed the memory from her mind. If she kept thinking of Adrian, she would cry, and it wouldn’t do to allow herself to show weakness in front of these new vampires. They were certainly all interesting characters, but far more dangerous than any village folk she and Adrian had observed. She was already a “lesser,” to their minds, they would latch on to any small flaw and make her life even worse than it already was. She couldn’t let them see her upset or shaken, even though they were largely the most terrifying people she had ever met.

Unlike Dracula, they had no reason, no personal motivation to participate in this war. They weren’t upset over what happened to Mama, they just wanted bloodshed for the sake of it, they didn’t see humans as people. They killed and maimed for fun. They treated her more as an indulgence of Dracula’s, an intelligent pet. She heard them whisper about her as she sat, perfectly still, like the doll she was, but only in the library. None of them had much interest in the astrarium, or the forge, she saw one in the music room, once, she thinks their name was Chō? But they left quite quickly, when she entered with Issac.

She was just starting in on her third week of doing absolutely nothing all day, every day, when she realized that the two forgemasters simply didn’t care if she was doing anything. Whether she decided to read, or sit and stare at them, they had done their jobs. They never forced her to do anything, or even to pretend to do something. The only person she was making this difficult for was herself.

As she sat in the library, no longer looking at Hector, but laying flat on a couch, she pondered this idea. As she saw it, she had two options. One: she could give it up and do the things she used to enjoy (although she was uncertain anything would ever make her happy again) or she could try and be more actively rebellious.

As unappealing she found the first option, the second was far more dangerous. The last time she had attempted an escape, the second day of being in the care of the forgemasters, she was not caught by Dracula, or even by one of the forgemasters, but by one of the vampire generals. She had realized, when they grabbed her by the neck and didn’t bother to check if she was keeping up while they dragged her back to Dracula, that he had been exceedingly gentle with her when he caught her in the air. At least, she did not bear the marks of his claws around her waist the way she did her throat. The only reprimand they received was that they were not to harm her  _ unnecessarily.  _ She was wary of finding out what any of these generals perceived as “necessary force.”

By the time she had finished considering, she had already been escorted back to her room. As she sat back on her bed, she realized just how exhausted she was from the walk up. There were a great many steps up to her tower, but they had never been a problem before.  _ Was she getting sick again?  _ This thought was one more to weigh on her thoughts.

Ever since she was quite young, Elisbeta had been physically weak. When she was a girl, maybe five or six, she took ill, and ended up being bedridden for almost a full year. It took all her parents’ best efforts to make her well again, and she had remained sickly and frail for many years. She had never gotten quite that sick again, but she got close a few times. Any sickness she got laid her out for at least a week.

She hated being sick, and she was quite certain it would be much worse without her family there. Whenever she was sick, before, they each did all they could to make her happy and keep her occupied. Coming in to chat while she was awake, bringing her books and food…

_ Oh. Food.  _ Come to think of it, she hadn’t eaten real food since... 

_ Since Mama died. _ It wasn’t a happy thought. She had only been taking blood since then.

She and her brother’s particular biology was strange, especially in terms of their gaining sustenance. A dhampir could sustain themself on human food or blood just fine, they seemed about equivalent in value. It was  _ possible  _ for a dhampir to sustain themselves purely on one or the other, but it did seem like only having blood had made her weaker. She was told, once, by her father, that blood would heal her wounds better, but food had more nutrients she needed to be strong. In fact, her mother was quite strict about her eating heartily and well, to help her gain a healthy weight, and keep her from getting sick.

So she may very well be taking ill, because she wasn’t eating enough. She stood and walked to the mirror. She was getting thinner, too. That probably wasn’t good. Mama was always very concerned about her being underweight and getting the right nutrients to keep her healthy, and always overfilled Elisbeta’s plate at meals. Adrian, who almost never got sick, took it upon himself to make sure she exercised. Or maybe he just enjoyed fencing and horse riding with her…

Either way, her health had greatly declined since she started only being given blood. She was too frightened to ask Dracula for food, though. She was sure there was food in the castle, even if the vampires didn’t eat, Issac and Hector must need to.

Asking them was also out of the question. She had never spoken a word to either of them, and they hardly spoke to her. There was no knowing what their reactions might be if she were to ask, and she was not exactly in a position of power, here. She didn’t think either of them was…  _ that  _ kind of man, but they were alone with her for most of the day, and Elisbeta felt her caution in that respect was reasonable.

She laid down to rest, unusually tired, and decided she would just have to suck it up. At this point, she would prefer to be sick and miserable in her room alone than being carted around the castle by two stone-faced strangers. She would decide what to do tomorrow, for now, all she wanted was sleep.

* * *

Issac was not a hesitant man. He saw what needed to be done, and he did it, he performed his work with an exacting hand and only followed orders from those he respected highly. Those like Dracula.

That was why he even bothered escorting the girl around, anyhow. He was a busy man, he would not typically have accepted to perform such a task. But Dracula had asked it of him and his partner, not because they were best suited, best because he trusted them. Issac would not let him down.

Issac was not a hesitant man, but when he entered the girl’s room, after knocking and briskly calling for her for almost 15 minutes, he hesitated.

It was now about a quarter to one in the afternoon. Usually, when he fetched her (at half past noon, on the dot, every other day, nobody could say he was not punctual) she was already bathed, dressed, and quite awake. But now, she was still lying in her bed, her back to him, breathing slow and shallow. In fact, her breathing was so shallow, that under the heavy blankets it was hard to tell if she still  _ was _ breathing.

Issac had never laid hands on her before, but her statuesque stillness was his first concern. He pressed his fingers to her wrist and searched for her hummingbird pulse. Issac was not a doctor, but he was quite sure it was too faint and arrhythmic to be healthy. He counted himself lucky that she wasn’t dead, she was pale and incredibly warm.

Now, he did not hesitate. He knew Dracula would want to know of his daughter’s condition immediately. From there, he was certain that he would be given instructions on what to do. He left swiftly and walked down the steps towards Dracula’s study.  _ How had she gotten so sick all of a sudden? _ Strange, indeed. He should fetch Hector, as well. He felt as if this, too, would be a job for the both of them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JESUS  
> Sorry for the long wait!! I've been in exam hell.  
> Hope you enjoy the new chapter!


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